The
Long and Short of Putter Length and Lie

by
Geoff Mangum

Don't let the putter
wag the puttee; figure out a setup that is best for a good stroke, and
then fit the putter to your needs, or else you'll get stuck with "average
golferitis."

***

What difference does
it make if the putter is 35 inches long with a "standard" lie of 71 degrees?
Isn't this about what EVERYONE uses? It's surely what almost ALL the putter
manufacturers peddle, so what could possibly be the question? The long
and short of it is: putters are NOT designed for optimal putting, but
for buyers of putters, and by far most buyers of putters are NOT too good
at putting. The dirty little secret is: Many many times, it's not the
puttee -- it's the putter.

What's
Stock.

Putters in golf shops
all look the same length, and nearly the same lie. So-called "standard"
putters are 35 inches long with a "lie" of 71 degrees. Many manufacturers
typically offer lengths from 33 to 37 inches with lies varying from 4
degrees more upright than 71 degrees to 4 degrees flatter.

Does anyone recall
the advice that the golfer's setup and technique should dictate the putter
length and lie, rather than allowing the putter specs to dictate technique?
The dog wags the tail! But in golf, the putter wags the puttee!

More and more manufacturers
are coming around, though. Karsten Manufacturing, makers of the popular
Ping putters, cautions golfers to get fitted for their putters, and makes
lengths available from 30 to 42 inches, with lie adjustments 8 degrees
either way off "standard." Zevo also makes custom fitted putters. Other
custom putters can be found.

What's
Wrong -- Too Long!

Does a 35 inch putter
work best for the average golfer? The average US male is typically between
5 feet 10 inches tall and 6 feet tall. Standing upright, the hands typically
hang so the wrists match the crotch in height above the ground or the
inseam on his pants, and the typical inseam length is between 30 and 33
inches. The WRISTS of almost all male golfers naturally hang 30 to 33
inches above the ground, so almost all golfers can grip a 35 inch putter
WITHOUT BENDING OVER AT ALL. This is certainly the case with 6-foot tall
males and is even more the case with anyone shorter. So this applies to
about 90 percent of all male (and almost all female) golfers.

Crooked
Elbows or a Flat Lie with Hands Out Away and Eyes Inside the Ball.
A 35 inch putter causes problems! If you have a 35 inch putter and place
your hands on the grip BEFORE you bend over at address, your bending will
necessarily cause your elbows to flex as your torso lowers your shoulders
but your hands stay the same height. The arms have to collapse (elbows
outward) to accommodate the shorter distance between shoulder height and
hands height. The only other way to bend at address and keep the elbows
from going out to the sides is to extend the putterhead farther from your
body and stance as you bend, so your hands lower in height as your shoulders
lower.

What's wrong with
that (the tail wagging the dog)? Bent elbows during putting require upper
arm and forearm tension to control the position of the elbows to keep
the overall shape of the arms-hands-putter system constant during the
stroke. This tension, even if maintained steadily, translates into added
grip pressure and detracts focus from more important aspects of the stroke.
A failure to pay attention to this problem leaves excess "play" in the
system, so the system can vary in length going back and coming through
in the stroke, making solid consistent contact very problematic. The great
Leo Diegel in the 1920s took care of this problem by poking both elbows
out sharply, in a style since known as "Diegeling."

In the same way,
extending the putterhead away from your stance also causes defects in
technique. First, this forces the eyes back from the ball, so your targeting
suffers from defective sighting angles that cause misperceptions of the
target location. Eyes inside typically cause the target to appear to the
right of its actual location.

Second, this forces
the hands farther away from the thighs and flattens the lie angle of the
putter. The net effect is you cannot simply move back and through in the
stroke, with the putter hanging from your light grip; instead you have
to lift and carry the putter back, and this adds a requirement of constant
tension to your arms and grip.

Third, the extended
putterhead with eyes inside the ball forces a "gating" stroke path back
around to the inside and then forward around back to square, with a follow
through forward and back around again. Good luck having a square face
at the precise instant of contact! In the 1920s and 1930s, Walter Hagen,
Horton Smith, Bobby Locke and others tried to deal with this problem by
"hooding" the left wrist to try to eliminate the gating effect -- letting
the left wrist fold or break on the backstroke and then gradually returning
the wrist to square as the putterhead approached impact, to keep the putterhead
going straight back and through on a single line.

So what happens if
you bend BEFORE assuming your grip on the putter, allowing your hands
to sink down the club as your shoulders lower? Try it and see. Your hands
will slide 5 or 6 inches down the handle before you feel you are in the
old familiar address position. And you are probably at the very bottom
of the grip material on the handle, or perhaps a tad onto the metal with
your fingers.

The message should
be pretty clear -- ALMOST ALL GOLFERS OUGHT TO HAVE A PUTTER THAT IS 5
TO 6 INCHES SHORTER THAN "STANDARD."

If you currently
use a 35 inch putter, try letting your hands slip down the putter as you
bend before taking hold of the grip. Your head and eyes should remain
over the ball, your arms hang naturally without tension and elbow "play,"
your hands hang naturally beneath the shoulders, the putterhead is not
artificially forced away from your body, and your stroke path does not
have a huge "gating" effect.

What's
Wrong -- Too Flat a Lie!

If the putter length
is too long, you either have the elbows crooked or the putterhead out
away from you. Neither is good. The "lie" of the putter is determined
by the height of your hands above the surface at address and by the horizontal
distance from your hands out to the ball. The purpose of the lie is to
set the sole of the putter flat on the surface, given the position of
the hands back and above the ball. If you have a hands position that results
in either the toe angling up or the heel angling up, your lie is incorrect.
Such a lie also alters the sweetspot location on your putterface, so beware.

The "lie" is the
angle between the two lines that meet at the ball: the line back to your
feet and the line up along the shaft of the putter. That's where the "standard"
71 degrees comes in. But this is just odd jargon. The real point is that
the shaft angles back FROM VERTICAL (90 degrees) by 19 degrees with the
"standard" lie (90 - 71 = 19).

What's wrong with
that? Well, the geometry is pretty straightforward: a typical 6 foot golfer
using a putter 19 degrees back off vertical cannot possibly place his
eyes directly over the ball unless he bends WAY LOW (with his hands going
far down the metal or else his elbows point out to the sides). The reason
is that the typical horizontal distance back from the eyes to the shoulder
sockets and hands is pretty constant for people, and is around 7 to 8
inches. With the eyes over the ball, a shaft running up from the ball
at a 19 degree angle meets the plane of the hands 8 inches back at a mere
height of 23 inches. On a 35 inch putter, in order to put and keep your
eyes directly over the ball, your palms must be gripping metal or your
elbows must point nearly 6 inches out in either direction or a combination
of the two.

Even if you can find
a grip height that does not cause undue elbow "play," AND you can keep
your eyes over the ball, if the lie is too far back off vertical you still
have the problem of having to support the putterhead during the back and
through motion with some lifting tension in the arms and hands. This requires
the hands to float away from you as you lift slightly to keep the sole
hovering above the turf, out from the hands' natural hanging line beneath
the shoulders. And you still have the "gating" problem for solid, online,
consistent impact.

As a test, lift the
putter just off the surface and then relax your arms and hands. If the
putterhead drops back towards your feet, your lie is too flat. In effect,
the putter is trying to get to a more upright position by falling back
towards the line straight down below your shoulder sockets.

So
What's Good?

If you are 6 feet
tall or under and believe in the following statements, a "standard" putter
is very likely causing you problems in your putting:

The setup should
be comfortable;

The eyes should
be directly above the ball;

The grip should
be relaxed without tension in the arms;

There should not
be excess "play" in the system during the stroke;

The putter sole
should rest flat on the ground or just above the ground;

The stroke path
should remain pretty close to on line, without "gating," especially
in the foot before and after impact.

To putt with these
principles, you cannot allow the putter to dictate your position or technique.

To determine your
proper length and lie, you should assume a setup position with a comfortable
back and neck bend so the eyes are directly over the ball and your arms
are hanging naturally and completely beneath your shoulders. Then you
need two numbers: A) the horizontal distance from the centers of your
palms out to the ball, and B) the vertical height of the centers of your
palms above the ground. Try holding a yardstick horizontally out above
the ball and looking straight down with eyes above the ball to get A.
With these two numbers, your length and lie are simple geometry.

A right triangle
is formed with vertices at three points: the center of the palms, the
ball, and a point directly above the ball horizontally out from the center
of the palms. "A" is the distance from the hands horizontally
out to the point above the ball. "B" is the distance from there
to the ground, which is identical to the distance from the center of the
palms to the ground. The angle at the ball of this triangle is the offset
from vertical of the shaft.

The
Lie. The
number A divided by B gives the "tangent" of the offset from vertical
-- a simple number indicating the constant ration of these two sides for
this unique angle at the ball. The inverse of this "tangent" (called the
"arctangent") gives the angle in degrees offset from vertical.
Manufacturers describe lie as the angle up to the shaft from the ground,
so your "lie" is 90 degrees less this arctangent number. The formula is
Lie = 90 minus Arctangent(A/B).

The
Length.
The length to the palms is the hypotenuse (longest side) of the 90 degree
triangle having vertices at the ball, hands, and a point out from the
hands directly above the ball. The two shorter sides of the triangle are
A and B. From the Pythagoreum Theorem, (A times A) plus (B times B) =
hypoteneuse times hypoteneuse. Or, the hypoteneuse length is the square
root of the sum of the two sides squared. Since this goes only to the
centers of the palms, add about 4 inches to get the full length of your
putter. The formula is Length = Square Root(A*A + B*B) + 4 inches.

Two
Examples.
A golfer is 6 feet tall and when he assumes his address position, his
hands hang 25 inches above the surface (6 inches beneath his crotch, with
the center of his palms about halfway down his thighs toward his knees),
and the horizontal distance from his hands out to the ball and his eye
line over the ball is 8 inches. His lie should be 17.75 degrees off vertical
or 72.25 degrees. His putter length should be 30.25 inches, or just 30
inches.

Another golfer is
5 feet 6 inches tall and when he assumes his address position, his hands
hang 22 inches above the surface (about 5 inches below the crotch, just
above the knees), and the horizontal distance from his hands out to the
ball is 7 inches. His lie should be 17.65 degrees off vertical or 72.35
degrees. His putter length should be 27 inches.

In both cases, the
putter is considerably shorter than stock and the lie is more upright.
The shorter the golfer, the more each of these is true. Unless you are
very tall or have difficulty bending, stock putters very likely are hurting
your game.

You can calculate
your length and lie now, using this scientific calculator: Calc98

LIE: To get the ARCTANGENT,
just type in the ratio then click Shift then Tan. The result in the display
is the angle off vertical. For the lie angle up from the ground, the calculator
sequence is A, /, B, =, Shift, aTan, MIn, 90, -, MR, =.

LENGTH: The calculator
sequence is A, x^2, +, B, x^2, =, SQR, +, 4,=. This gives the total length
of the putter.

Make
This Part of Your Game.

Shorter putters and
more upright putters should be the rule of the day. Oftentimes, poor putting
is caused by using putters that other poor putters choose to use. Manufacturers
are in the business of maximizing sales, not improving your game. They
sell putters mostly to poor putters, as the average golfer score is well
above 90. These putters are designed to fit into this majority technique.
Don't be a go-along sucker! Get fitted for a REAL putter under the guidance
of someone who knows how to putt very well. If you can't find a custom
fitted putter, take a hacksaw and cut down a "standard" putter and get
it regripped. The long and short of putter lengths and lies is that you
won't ever get rid of these problems until the dog starts wagging the
tail!